


It's Harder Than You Think

by serenlyall



Series: A Galaxy of Shadows [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenlyall/pseuds/serenlyall
Summary: Lorth Needa is a sad man; Leia Organa is a happy child. But that is not the entirety of their story.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Lorth Needa
Series: A Galaxy of Shadows [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704334
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	It's Harder Than You Think

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Tumblr fic that I wrote four years ago (good gracious, four years ago...) and only just found again. I thought it was actually good, so I wanted to post it for the rest of the world to see.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It's Harder Than You Think

The sparkling lights and twittering laughter that filled the ballroom was enough to make any man sick. Fifteen varying rose-colored chandeliers hung from the intricately arched and domed ceiling, arrayed in concentrically falling circles, casting a bloody-purple light across the white, black, and gold marbled dance floor. The light was brightest at the heart of the room beneath the center-most chandelier, whose glass was tinted so lightly as to be nearly white, while it was darkest at the edges of the grand hall, where shadows filled the space between the black-blood light of the outermost chandeliers and the pillared walls.

Men and women dressed in gaudy finery spilled and swirled across the dance floor, skirts and coattails trailing after their slippered and booted feet like a hundred lace wings. Tipsy laughter joined the sweet music rising from two low-slung balconies on either side of the room, and gossiping lips dripped poisoned honey into the delicate wine of the flowering spring evening.

Lorth Needa straightened his uniform jacket with a sharp jerk of the hem, and fought the urge to wipe his sweaty palms on his pants. He was uncomfortable among nobility–always had been, even in the days when the highest class he had been forced to interact with were the Republic’s bickering Senators and the stiffly dutiful Jedi. Now, only nine years after the destruction of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire, a new class of nobility had risen beneath the dark wings and whisperings of the Emperor and his court–and though he never would have thought it possible, Lorth found himself missing the old Senate galas. _At least then,_ he thought, _I knew where I stood with the men and women whispering in corners. At least then I wasn’t constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting…_

Expecting what? He was a loyal and dutiful officer in the Emperor’s service. He had no reason to be afraid.

And yet he was. It was as if the spires rising above the Imperial Palace, like a hundred black talons, had speared his heart as surely as the thorns of a rotten rose. They had speared his heart, and for so long as he remained beneath their poisoned bastions, his flesh was caged by fear and suspicion. 

_The fools feed on it,_ he thought bitterly, sharp gaze falling upon the whirling dervish of men and women spinning across the dance floor. _On the suspicion. On the fear. On the cruelty here._

It was a cruel game, the dance of politics. It was filled with poison and shadows, with cloaks and daggers and needles hidden by sweet smiles. And while the old Senate had been corrupt, had been a gluttonous slug bloated from money and power–and Needa believed that with all of his heart–even the old Senate had never fostered the same cruel games of power and spite that seemed to flourish beneath the Emperor’s guidance.

And sometimes–sometimes, such as when he was forced to join the lights and flowing wines and soaring musics–he could not help but wonder which he hated more.

“You seem sad.”

Startled out of his dark thoughts, Lorth looked sharply down toward the young voice that had spoken at his elbow. There he saw a dark-haired child–a girl of no more than eight or nine years–staring up at him with wide, brown eyes. Her dress was simply cut, but elegant, with none of the frills and embellishments he had come to expect on courtiers’ finery, and a soft-slippered toe peeked out from beneath her double skirts. Her hair was pinned to the top of her head in loose coils, and her cheeks were unpainted.

“Hello,” Lorth said, as taken aback by the girl’s sudden appearance as by her words, and not knowing what else to say.

The girl hesitated–he could see it in her eyes, the way she paused to think, to consider him, her head canting ever so slightly to one side as her eyes met his–and then she smiled brightly up at him. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Leia. Who are you?”

“My name is Lorth,” Needa replied, still not entirely sure what to make of the child. “Where are your parents?” he asked, once again uncertain as to what else to say.

“Papá’s talking to the Emperor,” the girl–Leia–declared. “But he doesn’t like me being around when he’s talking to Important People,” and despite himself, Needa could not help but quirk a grin at the girl’s childish, capitalized emphasis, “so he told me to wait for him.”

“Well, if he’s talking to the Emperor, your father must be a man of Much Importance himself,” Needa pointed out. 

To himself, he wondered just who the girl’s father could be–a man of enough standing to have an audience with the Emperor at a trifling gala like this was a man to be wary of, certainly. One of the more cunning nobles, most likely–though Needa was unaccustomed to thinking of such men as having children. At least, not legitimate children–and most certainly not children they would bring with them to a court function.

And yet… And yet, this girl was hardly what he would expect of a child of one of the nobles. She was bright, cheerful, and intelligent, and had an air of brilliant joy about her that one could almost feel, and couldn’t help but be touched by. It made Needa want to smile at her–made him want to laugh, and make her laugh in return. She was intriguing in a quiet, demanding way that Needa suspected half the nobles in the room would kill to learn third-hand.

Leia laughed. “I s’pose,” she agreed with a shrug. She looked at him again–canted her heat to one side as if listening to a whisper he couldn’t hear, her eyes bright and searching–and then she laughed as she took half a skipping step forward. “He’s not scary,” she promised. “You should meet him. I think you’d like him.”

“But would he like me?” Needa asked. The question slipped out from his lips before he could swallow it back–and in an instant he regretted his impulsive carelessness. _She’s just a child,_ he reminded himself sternly. _What would she understand of court intrigue and politics?_ He could only hope that she was also too young to have detected and understood the undertone of anger and cynical cruelty in his voice.

Leia pursed her lips, and narrowed her eyes. Considered. Then, “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It would depend.”

It was hardly the answer Needa had expected. “Depend?” he asked, curious in spite of himself. “On what?”

“Many things,” Leia replied, and Needa felt a small prickle race up and down his spine at the girl’s tone–cold, calculating, and somehow distant and intimate all at once. But then the girl laughed, bright and giggling, and Needa was struck by just how young she really was. “Mostly on if I like you or not,” she informed him.

“And?” Needa asked.

“And what?”

“Do you like me?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Leia said. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

A lull in the music that had gone unnoticed came to a sudden, swelling end as the orchestras on the two balconies struck up a new waltz. As quick as lightning, Leia darted forward and seized one of Lorth’s hands in both of hers.

“Dance with me,” she commanded. Then she smiled her brilliant smile. “Please?”

Needa laughed with a quiet shake of his head. “I think not, little lady,” he said. “What would your father think, to find you gone and dancing with a strange man more than four times your age?”

“Please?” Leia repeated. “We don’t need to go far.” She gave his hand a small tug. “Please?”

With a sigh, Lorth relented. It was very difficult to deny the girl’s pleading eyes and plaintive please. “Very well,” he said. “But we stay on the edge, and you tell your father when he comes for my head that this was your idea.”

Leia laughed. “Of course,” she said lightly. “Though Papá would hardly take your head.”

“You may be surprised at the vindictiveness of men, little lady,” Needa said, leading her out onto the dance floor, “especially when it is to protect something they think is theirs.”

“First of all,” Leia said with a slightly disapproving curl of her lips, “I’m a someone, not a something. Second, what would Papá do with your head? It would just be a bloody mess, and far more annoyance than it was worth. Besides,” she added sagely, “Papá’s glares are much scarier than any knife or threat of beheading.”

Needa blinked, opened his mouth–and then realized he did not know what to say. “Just how old _are_ you, little lady?” he asked, leading the girl in a small spin.

“Nine,” Leia said proudly, as she turned back in and took Lorth’s offered hand. They slid into another basic step, Leia’s skirts rustling in time to the three-count beat, Needa’s boots beating out a steady rhythm.

“Nine?” Lorth asked, barely able to hide his disbelief.

Leia nodded. “My birthday was just last week,” she added happily.

 _Just who is this child?_ Needa wondered.

“Leia!”

A man’s stern voice cut through the final strains of music, ending their dance abruptly. Leia released Needa’s hand, and spun around to face the newcomer, a wide smile blossoming.

“Papá,” she cried, and flung herself toward the tall man striding toward the pair.

For a split second, as the man drew near, he looked up from his daughter and met Needa’s eyes. As their gazes met, a jolt ran through Lorth, from the pit of his stomach to his head–an electric spark that snapped through muscle and thought alike with a sudden, burning understanding. 

Leia’s father was none other than Bail Organa, Senator and Prince of Alderaan. 

Suddenly, a great many things made sense.

“I thought I told you to wait for me-” Leia’s father began, turning his attention away from Needa without a second thought.

“I did!” Leia protested.

“-with _Mon_ ,” her father finished. He knelt so that he was on his daughter’s level, a stern and displeased expression darkening his face. “She was nearly frantic when she realized you weren’t with her anymore.”

“But she was busy talking to Ithorea and T’bal’a,” Leia whined. “And they’re so-”

“Leia,” Senator Organa snapped, silencing his daughter.

“Sorry,” Leia mumbled, looking down and scuffing her shoe against the marble-tiled floor.

“We’re going home,” Senator Organa announced, standing. “And you’re going straight to bed when we arrive. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” the little princess said, scuffing her shoe again.

“Good. Now go say goodbye to Tya Mon. I will be there in a moment. And Leia,” Senator Organa said, his voice darkening, “I expect you to be at her side when I come to get you.”

“Yes, sir,” Leia replied.

She started to leave–but then she stopped, and turned back. Her eyes flew to Lorth’s, and unexpectedly she darted forward. “Thank you for the dance, Master Needa,” she said, curtsying in front of him. And then, just as unexpectedly, she flung herself forward and wrapped her short arms around his waist. 

Awkwardly, Needa reached down and patted the girl’s back. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I enjoyed the dance.”

She drew back, and looked up at him again. Their eyes met, darkdark brown to bright blue-green. And she smiled. “Don’t forget to dance sometimes,” she said quietly. “It helps with the sadness.”

And then with that she was gone, darting away in a whirl of skirts and brightbright laughter, leaving the world cold and silent in her wake.

“Thank you for watching her.”

Lorth looked up quickly, to see Bail Organa standing a scant few paces away from him. He was smiling, and though his dark eyes were guarded, there was a warm kindness in his smile that was as genuine as the rose chandeliers overhead.

“You have quite the daughter,” Needa said.

“That I do,” Organa agreed, and his smile grew and his eyes brightened.

Needa bowed, stiff and formal. “I am only glad that I could be of some service, my lord,” he said.

A rustle of movement. And then a warm hand on his shoulder brought Lorth’s head up. For another half second, Officer and Senator’s eyes met, and an unspoken understanding flitted between them.

And then Bail Organa was gone as well, following his daughter, and leaving Needa feeling very cold and alone.

 _Cold and alone_ , he realized as he straightened and turned once more toward the dancers, _but not sad._

_Quite the child indeed,_ he mused, settling himself back in the shadows once more.

He wondered if he would ever meet her again.

* * *

The message was unexpected, and only half welcome.

The fourteen hours it took for the _Avenger_ to reach Kalostan were tense and uncomfortable, and Captain Needa spent the entirety of the voyage on the bridge, more than half expecting a second message to arrive at any second, informing of the prisoner’s escape. He dreaded such a message as much as he hoped it came—for, while the best possible outcome would be no escape at all, if the Princess of Alderaan escaped before his arrival, far less blame would come to bear upon his head than if she escaped while under his care.

The looked-for second message never came.

Needa wondered, distantly, as his shuttle touched down and he was escorted to the makeshift base set up in an abandoned warehouse, whether or not the girl would remember him. He remembered her—remembered the child she had been. He remembered her dark eyes and her bright laughter, the way she had been at once fey and angelic.

When the door opened before him, however, and Lorth Needa stepped into the dimly lit office that had been transformed into a holding cell, he found that he could hardly recognize the woman facing him.

She was bloody and bruised, her wrists strung up above her head and her bare feet barely touching the floor. She looked up when the door opened, and through one swollen eye and a trickle of blood seeping from a split in her eyebrow, she glared at him with a hate black enough to stop him in his tracks.

She was anything but the sprite of a child who had clasped his hand so many years ago, and dragged him out of his own bleak world and into her bright and hopeful one, if only for a moment.

“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not going to tell you anything?” she growled. “I don’t care how much you beat me.”

“I haven’t come to torture you,” Needa said. “I only wanted to meet the famed Princess of Alderaan.”

“Well congratulations, Captain,” Leia Organa said, with a smile full of blood. “You’ve gotten your wish.”

“That I have,” Needa said, with a small, short nod. 

He turned away, and took a step toward the door. He had his answer, and now he yearned to put the sight of the princess’s torn and bloody face from his memory.

The princess’s voice stopped him. “You’re a sad man,” she said—and her voice was softer than it had been. But it was colder too, sharper, and there was a hidden needle beneath her words that, should he try to draw too close, Lorth suspected would spear his heart with poison. “You never did learn how to escape your sorrow, did you?”

“So you do remember me.” It was not a question. Needa did not turn.

“You asked me once if my father would like you,” Leia said.

Still Needa did not move—just waited, with bated breath and a frozen heartbeat.

“He would despise you.”

Only now did Needa turn, slowly, with hands sneaking behind him to clasp together tightly at the small of his back. “And why,” he asked the princess, his eyes falling upon her blood-stained face once more, “should I care what your traitor of a father would think of me?”

“Because you’re a coward,” Leia said softly, mockingly. “Because you’re nothing more than a puppet on strings of blood, but you’ve always dreamed of being more.”

“I do not know what you hope to accomplish by antagonizing me,” Needa said tightly. His nails dug into the flesh of his fingers as he clenched his hands tighter, tighter. “Might I remind you that I hold your fate in my hands?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Leia laughed.

And Lorth was struck by just how different her laugh was now—just how jolting and _strange_ it was, compared to the laughter of his memories. While the laughter he remembered was bright and joyful, the laugh he heard now was bitter and black—full of blood, and broken bone.

“You have changed much, Leia Organa,” Needa said.

She canted her head to the side. “And you haven’t changed at all.” Her eyes burned.

“Now go,” she ordered. “You and I both know you won’t have me tortured—the memory of the child I was is still too dear to you—and the questions you came here to ask have been answered. What other purpose do you have with me?”

For a long moment, Needa did not move. And then, at last, he sighed. “I pity you, Leia,” he said quietly. “For one who shines so brilliant, you are nothing but a dying star.”

With that, he turned and strode from the room, leaving the broken shadow of the little girl he had once known hanging from her bloody wrists.

He hoped he would never meet her again.

* * *

Eighteen months later, as he stood before Darth Vader and admitted to his failure, there was a very small part of Lorth Needa’s heart that, for the first time in more years than he could count, felt free.

 _You’re a coward,_ the falling star of a woman had named him. _A puppet on strings of blood._

And the very small part of Lorth Needa’s heart that was not afraid of death smiled. _I am,_ he agreed at last.

_But now, at least, I’m free._

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think? Comment and let me know!


End file.
